Drew Perkins talks with Ron Noble, Chief of Teacher Prep at the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) to discuss the "Transforming Teacher Prep" initiative. We explore why pre-service training often misses the mark and how prioritizing clinical practice, curriculum literacy, and the science of learning can fix it. Plus, Ron shares how NCTQ's new District Policy Pathfinder is bringing…
Drew Perkins welcomes math teacher and author Michael Pershan to explore the history of CLT and how he thinks about applying Cognitive Load Theory in his math teaching. Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode Have some feedback you'd like to share? You can email me at drew@thoughtstretchers.org . If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or…
In this episode Drew Perkins talks with Haili Hughes, Associate Professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia about her work and thinking on education and teaching. More specifically, this conversation touched on matters of education tribalism, research, it's lethal mutations, and how to put those findings into practice as part of ongoing teacher development and empowerment. Links &…
Drew Perkins talks with Mark Enser about his Substack piece titled, A Pedagogy for Powerful Knowledge | Why dialogue, enquiry and cognitive science aren't competing answers. This episode addresses questions like: "How to combine cognitive science with inquiry-based learning", "Differences between classroom discussion and dialogic teaching", "Why inquiry requires high-level scaffolding", and "How…
Drew Perkins talks with with author and educator Christian Moore to critically examine the "just tell them" model of instruction often championed by popular "science of learning" advocates. Drawing from his book, Teaching Meaning: What Works When Telling Isn't Enough , Moore introduces the framework of "enactivism"—the cognitive science-based perspective that meaning cannot be simply transmitted…
In this episode of the ThoughtStretchers Education Podcast, Drew Perkins talks with leading education thinkers Dylan Wiliam, Jo Boaler, and Chris Harrison to explore the work and life of Paul Black and his profound impact on teaching and learning, especially the concept of assessment for learning. Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode Have some feedback you'd like to share? You can email me…
Drew Perkins talks with James Moore, author of Explain Yourself: Master the Art of Explanation in the Age of AI , about how educators and communicators can effectively teach complex concepts. Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode Have some feedback you'd like to share? You can email me at drew@thoughtstretchers.org . If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and please leave a review on…
Drew Perkins talks with education journalist and author Holly Korbey to explore the complex intersection of cognitive science and progressive pedagogy. While the "Reading Wars" often dominate headlines, Drew and Holly dig deeper into the underlying tensions between explicit, knowledge-rich instruction and the desire for student-led inquiry. Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode Have some…
Drew Perkins welcomes back Ted Dintersmith to discuss the urgent need to move away from an education system obsessed with standardized testing and toward one that empowers students to do real, meaningful work. In his new book, Aftermath , and documentary, Multiple Choice, Dintersmith argues that our current system is "perfectly designed" to produce results that are increasingly irrelevant in an…
Drew Perkins talks with David Geary, a cognitive developmental and evolutionary psychologist and Curator's Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri. They dive into the foundations of evolutionary educational psychology, exploring how our evolutionary history shapes the way we learn today and why certain types of knowledge are fundamentally more difficult…